Bacillus cereus food poisoning

Terranova W, Blake PA. Bacillus cereus food poisoning. New Engl J Med 1978 298 143-144. 

Bacillus cereus B. cereus gastroenteritis food poisoning... 

Each year in the United States, approximately 76 million food-borne illnesses occur, leading to 325,000 hospitalizations and over 5000 deaths.40 A number of bacterial and viral pathogens that have been discussed previously in this chapter (e.g., Salmonella, Shigella, Campylobacter, E. coli, and noroviruses) can cause food poisoning. Other bacteria that can cause foodborne illness include Staphylococcus aureus, C. perfringens, C. botu-linum, and Bacillus cereus (Table 73-5). Food poisoning should be suspected if at least two individuals present with similar symptoms after the ingestion of a common food in the prior 72 hours. 

Bacillus cereus exotoxin is produced in the gastrointestinal tract after ingestion of improperly stored boiled or fried rice. B. cereus toxin is thermoresistant, as is staphylococcal enterotoxin. Symptoms of food poisoning occur up to six hours after food ingestion and are not characteristic (Butterton and Claderwood, 2001). 

Granum PE and Lund T (1997) Bacillus cereus and its food poisoning toxins. FEMS Microbiology Letters 157(2) 223-228. 

Hansen BM, Hendriksen NB (2001) Detection of enterotoxic Bacillus cereus and Bacillus thur-ingiensis strains by PCR analysis. Appl Environ Microbiol 67 185-189 Hauge S (1955) Food poisoning caused by aerobic spore-forming bacilli. J Appl Bacterid 18 591-595... 

Enterotoxins. Toxic proteins formed by bacteria with molecular masses in the range from 27000 to 30000 which are usually excreted into the medium ( exotoxins). E. can be taken up with contaminated food or be formed by the bacteria colonizing the intestinal walls. Finally, the bacteria can penetrate the intestinal walls and then start to excrete the E. Some E. are thermally very stable and survive when food is boiled. E. from Salmonella and Staphylococcus species are the most frequent causes of food poisoning. Shortly after uptake, the symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and circulatory complaints occur. Deaths are rare and occur only when the subject is already in a weakened state. The sites of attack by E. vary, e.g., at intestinal epithelial cells or in the vegetative nervous system. For the production of antitoxins, E. are obtained by lysis of bacterial cells or from cell-free culture filtrates. E. have been detected, e. g., in the following bacterial species Bacillus cereus, Clostridium perfringens, Escherichia coli. Vibrio cholerae. Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus faecalis. 

Bacillus cereus Can lead to food poisoning Duniere et al. (2013), Driehuis and Oude Elferink (2000)... 

Fig. 5.10 Relatedness among B. cereus strains isolated from poisonous food samples (serotypes HI through HI8) and seleeted Bacillus type strains determined by hierarchieal cluster analysis of distance matrices obtained from (a) proteomic and (b) DNA-DNA reassociation data. gyrB groups 1-3 stand for clusters of H-serotypes revealed by the analysis of concatenated nucleotide sequences oigyrB genes. (Reprinted with permission from Dworzanski etal. (2010, pp. 145-155). Copyright 2010 American Chemical Society...

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